ADVENTURE WITH A BOAR. 
387 
buttresses of a Silk-cotton tree, and putting the dogs 
fairly at defiance. He has here set his back against the 
wall, and he fights in desperation and dies in his hold. 
‘‘ I will relate a little adventure of my own with 
forest Hogs in Spanish Haiti. I was in the way, 
with the friend I have mentioned in some of my 
former notes, to visit a curious chambered rock in 
the savanna of Copey, near Puerta-plata. It was 
situated at the foot of a still more curious mountain, 
that gave out strange musical sounds ; the warbling 
wind, struggling through the fissures and crannies, 
had conferred upon it a voice of enchantment. The 
Hatero’s wealth in these parts consists in his wood- 
land swine. A peon had been provided for us, to 
conduct us to these mountain wonders ; and though 
we had to clear our way, as we advanced, through 
occasional underwood, the forest, which was of mag- 
nificent growth, was generally exceedingly open. 
The chambered rock was an immense mass, of 300 
feet high, of detached stratified limestone, with its 
strata standing vertical. The obstructed waters of a 
small stream, over which it had been rolled, had 
cleared a way through its fissures, and formed 
curious galleries, whose roof, walls, and floors, were 
fretted with stalactitic incrustations. It was a grotto 
of crystal work, at once beautiful and strange. 
To ascend to the entrance it became necessary to 
pass along a narrow cliff-raised pathway, from which 
successive steps led to a labyrinth of galleries. The 
peon before, drawing his legs hastily up on a ledge 
above us, sounded out, ‘Look out for the Boar!’ 
In an instant up rose from a niche three forest Hogs, 
